Nagaland’s state-led intangible heritage documentation overlooks systemic threats to indigenous healing knowledge despite community efforts

Naga healing wisdom is rooted in animist cosmologies, oral traditions, and ecological reciprocity, where knowledge is transmitted through lived practice rather than static texts. State-led documentation risks freezing this dynamic system into a museum artifact, severing it from the land and community relationships that sustain it. Indigenous scholars like Vandana Shiva have long warned that such extraction mirrors colonial patterns of knowledge appropriation, where local epistemologies are repackaged for global markets without benefiting the communities that generated them.

Naga healing traditions have faced centuries of disruption, from British colonial suppression of indigenous practices to post-independence state assimilation policies that prioritized Western biomedicine. The 1960s ‘Green Revolution’ in Northeast India further eroded traditional agricultural and medicinal systems by promoting monocultures and synthetic inputs. Historical parallels include the forced assimilation of Native American healing practices through boarding schools, where indigenous knowledge was criminalized as ‘superstition’—a pattern that repeats in Nagaland through state-led ‘modernization’ narratives.

Comparable indigenous knowledge systems, such as the Andean *qhapaq ñan* or the African *sankofa*, emphasize that healing is inseparable from land stewardship and intergenerational transmission. In contrast, state-led documentation often treats knowledge as a commodity to be commodified, as seen in the patenting of turmeric by Western corporations despite its long-standing use in South Asian healing. The Naga case reflects a global pattern where indigenous knowledge is selectively preserved for tourism or biopiracy while the ecosystems and communities sustaining it are destroyed.

Ethnobotanical studies confirm that Naga medicinal plants, such as *Tinospora cordifolia* or *Phyllanthus emblica*, contain bioactive compounds with proven pharmacological effects, yet their efficacy is tied to complex ecological and spiritual contexts that lab-based reductionism cannot capture. The state’s documentation efforts lack rigorous methodological safeguards to prevent misappropriation or misrepresentation of traditional knowledge. Scientific literature on biocultural diversity highlights that indigenous knowledge systems often outperform Western medicine in treating chronic conditions, yet this evidence is sidelined in favor of extractive preservation models.

Naga healing is deeply intertwined with oral epics, ritual songs, and sacred landscapes, where art and spirituality are not ancillary but central to the transmission of knowledge. The state’s bureaucratic approach to documentation strips this embodied, performative dimension, reducing healing to a checklist of techniques. In contrast, indigenous artistic traditions like the Māori *whakairo* (carving) or the Navajo *sand painting* encode healing knowledge in symbolic forms that resist commodification. The loss of these traditions is not just a loss of data but a collapse of cultural meaning.

If current trends continue, Naga healing knowledge could face irreversible erosion within two decades due to habitat loss, state neglect, and the aging of traditional healers without adequate succession planning. Scenario modeling suggests that climate change will exacerbate this loss by disrupting medicinal plant distributions, while state-led ‘preservation’ efforts may accelerate commodification without addressing root causes. Alternative futures include community-led revitalization programs, legal recognition of indigenous knowledge systems, and decolonial healthcare models that integrate traditional and modern systems.

Women healers, who are often the primary custodians of Naga medicinal knowledge, are systematically excluded from state-led documentation processes despite their central role in transmission. Dalit and Adivasi healers within Naga communities face additional marginalization due to caste and ethnic hierarchies that devalue their contributions. The state’s top-down approach silences these voices, framing knowledge as a resource for institutional control rather than a communal right. Marginalized perspectives also highlight how extractive industries and state policies disproportionately impact women’s access to medicinal plants.